Local News

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) on Thursday took a significant step in plans to create a passenger rail system from Santa Cruz to Pajaro, which advocates are billing as a major milestone in a years-long effort. The approval of the...

WATSONVILLE—In a mostly empty Jan. 19 meeting conducted over Zoom, the Watsonville City Council voted unanimously to join a collective of local government agencies to streamline the process of rebuilding and reenforcing the Pajaro River levee. The union, called the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency...

Editor's note: This story was updated from a previous version. WATSONVILLE—The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees late Sunday night voted unanimously to rescind the recent dismissal of Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez after a seven-hour special meeting. The trustees also unanimously nominated Jennifer Holm as...

WATSONVILLE—Watsonville High School alumnus and former Oakland Raiders lineman Marv Marinovich—who captained the University of Southern California’s 1962 national championship team—once wrestled a champion bull that his dad brought home to their cattle ranch on Carlton Road. He and his brother, Gary, were both in...

WATSONVILLE—Battling the pandemic for nearly a year now has spurned a wealth of creative avenues to keep Covid-19 at bay. From crafty outdoor dining patios, equipped with heaters, sun umbrellas and all kinds of tents and landscaping, to attention-getting homemade signage, face shields and...

Watsonville firefighters and police secure a school bus that tore our utility lines in front of MacQuiddy Elementary School in Watsonville Thursday. About eight young students were aboard the bus when the incident occurred around 2:30pm. Police shut down surrounding streets while firefighters freed...

Last March, film director Melissa Elizondo was about to board a plane from Mexico bound for the Watsonville Film Festival (WFF) when she got a call from Executive Director Consuelo Alba. The festival had been canceled due to the pandemic, and international travel was...

WATSONVILLE—In the span of less than a week, Dignity Health-Dominican Hospital was able to set up a mass Covid-19 vaccination clinic on the outskirts of Watsonville to inoculate 1,000 people in the agriculture industry. Dignity Health’s parent corporation, CommonSpirit, said it would have 2,000 extra...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—On Tuesday Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County (SCFB) announced that its annual Holiday Food & Fund Drive (HFFD) raised the equivalent of 5.5 million meals—more than 1 million beyond its original goal. Prior to the pandemic HFFD co-chairs Megan Martinelli and...

CENTRAL COAST—Recent heavy rains, ushered into the Central Coast from the Gulf of Alaska, have helped alleviate low water levels in an otherwise dry winter. Ryan Walbrun, meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Monterey, said that since October Watsonville has taken in 9.7 inches...